Though the place brimmed with celebrity, I didn’t recognize the names, not then. I didn’t know the man leaning against the fireplace was Jimmy Luciano, grandson of the American gangster. Or that the man talking to him was Alberto Fadini, a cabinet minister whose father had served under Mussolini. A number of Italian actors milled about the room, and also some directors with young women, aspiring actresses on the arms of older men. The director von Stromberg had a French girl with him, and Francesco Olivetti, the typewriter heir, boasted a runway model from Milan. There was Johnny Marco, the star of the new Coppola movie, and a British director by the name of James Mawk whom the Italian Film Commission hoped might use Studio Cinecittà as the central shooting location for his new project. Mawk was working on a series about ancient Rome for an American network, and he had a coterie of aspiring cast members around him. I didn’t pay too much attention to any of these, though. Because at the edge of his coterie stood Isabella, dark haired, alone, holding a glass of champagne. She had a smoldering beauty. She stood alone, though there was a sense in which she was never alone, not the way people watched her. She held herself straight, shoulders back—in that way beautiful women do. She bowed her head to sip from the glass, and her lips left a stain on the rim.

When she looked up, her eyes seemed very bright. Our glances met then—mine and Isabella’s.

I might have approached her, but a man stood just behind her, and the man gave me pause. This was the bodyguard, Lodovico, from that night at the Purple Café. He was a sharp-faced man with receding black hair. He wore it slicked back. He was well dressed and might have been good-looking except for the ugliness about his mouth and the familiar way he looked me over, full of derision. He tilted his head toward Isabella as if giving her confidential information. Isabella burst into laughter.

“That man,” I told my brother.

“Which?”

“The one with Isabella.”

“Yes?”

“He was mocking me.”

“Poor sister.”

“And now you mock me, too.”

“No,” my brother said. “That’s not how I meant it.”

He explained then something of how it was with Lodovico. He was rash and ill-tempered. He had a violent history and other traits—a menacing demeanor, a connection to the underworld—things Orsini maybe had found useful at one time, but now made his presence more problematic. Worse, lately he’d begun to ingratiate himself with Isabella at Orsini’s expense.

“He’s dangerous.”

“He makes me nervous”

“I’ll tell Paulo.”

“No.”

“You’re not the only one,” he said. “The way he eyes the guests . . . Also, he has a fetish . . . stilettos . . . knives . . .”